Do you have to be miserable to be funny? More than sixty comedians—including stand-ups, writers, actors, and directors from the US, Canada, and abroad—take on this question, sharing anecdotes and insights with lively enthusiasm.
The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.
After being denied access to the Church of Scientology's headquarters, documentarian Louis Theroux teams up with ex-Scientology official Marty Rathbun to stage re-enactments of alleged abuses within the organization. Theroux soon discovers that the church is watching his every move.
This material was developed and prepared over the last year or so, mostly in comedy clubs. This special kind of goes back to when he used to just make noises and be funny for no particular reason. It felt right to him to shoot this special in a club to give it that live immediate intimate feeling. The show is about an hour long. The opening act, who is seen at the beginning (good place for an opening act) is Jay London. One of his favorite club comics going way back to the late 80s when he first started in working in New York.
A recent high school graduate is faced with two options, either go to a business school where his father wants him to go to, or get a full time job. However he decides to defy his father and go to Hawaii. Trouble is he has no money. Along the way he comes to understand his parents and eventually bonds with his father.
Having emigrated to New York and immediately got the kiss-off from her mother-besotted fiance, a Dutch lass takes a well-paid office job and starts liberally sampling the local male talent. After a while she decides to make her pleasure her business too, and as her reputation grows she graduates to a high-class bordello. Soon she realises she has the right talents to make a real success of a place of her own.
A former Secret Service agent grudgingly takes an assignment to protect a pop idol who's threatened by a crazed fan. At first, the safety-obsessed bodyguard and the self-indulgent diva totally clash. But before long, all that tension sparks fireworks of another sort, and the love-averse tough guy is torn between duty and romance.
When carefree teenager Jay sleeps with her older boyfriend for the first time, she learns that she is the latest recipient of a fatal curse that is passed from victim to victim via sexual intercourse. Death, Jay learns, will creep inexorably toward her as either a friend or a stranger. Jay's friends don't believe her seemingly paranoid ravings, until they too begin to see the phantom assassins and band together to help her defend herself.
Light years from Earth, 26 years after being abducted, Peter Quill finds himself the prime target of a manhunt after discovering an orb wanted by Ronan the Accuser.
When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
As New York City is invaded by alien creatures who hunt by sound, a woman named Sam fights to survive with her cat.
Stephanie, a dedicated mother and popular vlogger, befriends Emily, a mysterious upper-class woman whose son Nicky attends the same school as Miles, Stephanie's son. When Emily asks her to pick Nicky up from school and then disappears, Stephanie undertakes an investigation that will dive deep into Emily's cloudy past.
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
Unlikely hero Mickey Barnes finds himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job… to die, for a living.
Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails reunite against a powerful new adversary, Shadow, a mysterious villain with powers unlike anything they have faced before. With their abilities outmatched in every way, Team Sonic must seek out an unlikely alliance in hopes of stopping Shadow and protecting the planet.
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan's dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death.
A New York stockbroker refuses to cooperate in a large securities fraud case involving corruption on Wall Street, corporate banking world and mob infiltration. Based on Jordan Belfort's autobiography.
After a serious sport accident in a swimming pool, Ben, now an incomplete quadriplegic, arrives in a rehabilitation center. He meets with other handicapped persons (tetraplegics, paraplegics, traumatized crania), all victims of accidents, as well as a handicapped since his early childhood. They go through impotence, despair and resignation, with their daily struggle to learn how to move a finger or to hold a fork. Some of them slowly find a little mobility while others receive the verdict of the handicap for life. Despite everything, hope and friendship help them endure their difficulties.
Mel Gibson teaches Hamlet to a group of high school drama students.
World famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their fans.
A Todd Barry show consists of two things: amazing jokes and amazing crowd work. In September 2013, he went on a tour without the amazing jokes and did entire shows of riffing and bantering with the audience. Filmed in seven west coast cities, “Todd Barry: The Crowd Work Tour” was directed by Lance Bangs and produced by Louis CK.
In his final comedy special, Norm Macdonald ponders casinos, cannibalism, living wills and why you have to be ready for whatever life throws your way, all done in front of a camera, without an audience, and in one take. After his set, Norm's friends and fellow comics gather to salute him.
Stand-up comic Katherine Ryan reminisces about unusual relationships, aging, Taylor Swift, life in the hometown she hates and the time she enraged an entire nation.
The comic innovator delivers a surreal set blending experimental songs, jokes about grits, guns and drugs, and other improvised comedy adventures.
1980s. Brazilian television exploding in color and auditorium programs not so politically correct. In the middle of this fervor, Augusto Mendes, a young rising actor, seeks his place in the sun. From porn studios to soap operas, he finally finds success and fame when he becomes "Bingo", a TV host clown from one of the audience leader TV shows for children. It turns out that behind the rice powder and red nose, nobody knows who he is.
Patriots jerseys, angry Yankees fans, skinny fat guys with their shirts off, and don't touch a man's back fat! Corey Rodrigues is a comedian's comedian. He makes audiences and his comedy peers alike burst out laughing.
Jurgen is an unknown electrician with a dream of pop stardom. His mother browbeats him into fame, while two managers compete for his contract. All Johnny really wants to do is get some sleep.
On the verge of bankruptcy and desperate for his big break, aspiring filmmaker Bobby Bowfinger concocts a crazy plan to make his ultimate dream movie. Rallying a ragtag team that includes a starry-eyed ingenue, a has-been diva and a film studio gofer, he sets out to shoot a blockbuster featuring the biggest star in Hollywood, Kit Ramsey -- only without letting Ramsey know he's in the picture.
Carlin returns to the stage in his 13th live comedy stand-up special, performed at the Beacon Theatre in New York City for HBO®. His spot-on observations on the deterioration of human behavior include Americans’ obsession with their two favorite addictions - shopping and eating; his creative idea for The All-Suicide Channel, a new reality TV network; and the glorious rebirth of the planet to its original pristine condition - once the fires and floods destroy life as we know it.
Dane Cook's smash-hit show Rough Around The Edges is an energetic powerhouse stand-up performance recorded live in front of a packed house at Madison Square Garden.
Life has its downs for James, living with his mom in Chicago at 39, an aging performer at Second City, eating and weighing too much. A woman he's been dating drops him, as does his agent, her brother. James turns down roles in local TV, roles that make him sad. Someone's remaking his favorite movie, "Marty," a role he'd love, but he doesn't even get an audition.
Artie Lange first became known to a wider audience when he was selected to be one of the original cast members on MAD TV, but he had been toiling away for years as a club comic. It's the Whiskey Talkin' captures him performing a typically caustic show in front of a crowd that obviously listens to him regularly during his daily gig on Howard Stern's radio show.
From the frustrations of ordering at McDonalds and waiting in line at CVS, to the perplexities of expectant mother's parking spots and getting baptized in the Nile river, John Crist has been there to observe it all and ask simply...What Are We Doing? Filmed at the historic Lyric Theater in Birmingham, Alabama.
Comedy stand-up special featuring the gifted comic, Dana Gould
Stand-up special featuring Joe Piscopo
Comedy directed by Jerry Finberg and Scott Sorenson.
With the help of a hilarious, all-female slate of stand-up comedians, Jenny McCarthy takes an outrageous look at life as a contemporary woman: from single motherhood to casual sex. Shot at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, this one-hour special includes sets from Justine Marino, Tammy Pescatelli, Lynne Koplitz, Paula Bel and Tiffany Haddish, as well as a series of sketch vignettes from McCarthy herself.